For twenty five years - quite literally man and boy - I played the glorious game of rugby. I choose those words wisely. Rugby was (and hopefully still is, although I fear the changes coming about from the effects of professionalism) a superb sport for a boy and young man to play. It's fair to say that I loved the game; loved playing the game, to be precise.

Rugby was one of the few things that I was good at. Where my opportunities to progress within the sport were curtailed were around my even stronger commitment to my home life. Eventually I settled into a rhythm of playing every weekend for the club team without having to go to training during the week or commit to any more time away from home. Working shifts meant that I saw little enough of my partner (and ultimately my kids), and that was where my priorities lay. Still, I looked forward to every game, and with very few exceptions, thoroughly enjoyed the contests.

Those days are over now - a combination of circumstance and injury caught up with me - and any attempt to try to play at my advanced age would be dangerous. I miss it so very much today...but once upon a time, I had it all to look forward to:

Mud and big boots.Rugby and I had a rocky start to getting to know one another. Back in the mid seventies in England, as a small child for my age group (in fact the second smallest in my first grade of high school), the surly, intimidating school rugby coach - impressively injured in some bygone match to the extent that running was now utterly beyond him - took one look at my huge head of goldfish bowl-shaped hair on top of a scrawny little body and singled me out as 'a winger'. In retrospect, this may well have been an inappropriate euphemism for something else, but I didn't know about words like 'euphemism' then, and so took him at face value. A winger I was, and as instructed, I went to stand 'over there'. Huddled in a small group of boys with similarly goose-pimpled and purple-mottled thighs on a cool September afternoon, it was immediately clear that diminutive size (or worse: apparent wimpiness) was the main characteristic by which I had been chosen for this particular position. By inference the principle seemed to be that the further away from the pack we were placed (and apart from full back, it doesn't get much further away than on either wing), the less was the likelihood of us being broken into unpleasantly mushy lumps of bloodied flesh.

There I stood, eleven years old, approximately four feet six inches tall and weighing ninety pounds on a wet day. My rugby kit, such as it was, was not new: it had been saved by my parents ever since my closest brother had gone through the same process in the same school a whole five years earlier. Consequently it was ill-fitting, tattered around the load-bearing bits, more than a little faded and attractively accented by faint and mysterious stains from a bygone era. In a school heavily supplied with pupils from definitively middle class families, my working class roots were showing. My rugby boots were likewise 'previously loved'; two sizes too big on the inside and about fifteen sizes too big on the outside, complete with their own individual gravitational fields. These behemoths appeared to have been fashioned from one entire cow, and all of the hide had clearly been used in the process; they were thick, ugly, sported leather laces, reached halfway up my calf, and weighed about three pounds each. I felt - and looked - like a circus clown as I lifted each foot artificially high to avoid catching the toe of the boots on the ground. Standing still, due to a combination of outsized footwear, baggy kit draped on a skinny body and a perfectly spherical hair cut courtesy of my mother, my silhouette was not unlike a folded patio umbrella. I did not exactly strike fear into the hearts of my opponents.

As the youngest child of a low income family I had not had the best nutritional start in the world, but I knew that I was fast and agile on my feet, as countless schoolyard games of 'British Bulldog' had proven. My priorities were therefore to avoid being trampled, punched, bitten, trampled again or in any way mangled, and to run as fast as possible either around, or even better, away from any signs of trouble. Survival on the sporting battlefield was, in those earliest days, my only objective.

At first, however - after the teachers had painstakingly organized us into something approaching a couple of teams - it seemed that I had been worrying about nothing; the initial few instructional games were frankly very boring. All I seemed to do was walk forwards a few paces, stop...back a few paces, stop again...forward...and so on. Typically for school rugby being played by boys with no prior experience of the game, the ball (full sized, rubbed clean of any markings, slick to the point of being polished, over-inflated and therefore HUGE to our child's eyes and hands) very rarely made it far out of the pack to the half backs or centres, and absolutely never out to the wing; not even, it seemed, by some freakish accident. Watching sixteen other boys fight one another as they rumbled around the central forty percent of the pitch was about as dull as sport could get for me, and to be honest I saw no future in it...Rugby, I was convinced, sucked.

Then...one day...the impossible happened. Wandering about miserably and aimlessly near the touchline, staring vacantly over the neighbouring fence into a field of freshly harvested corn I had only just realized that it didn't grow in cans), I noticed with alarm that the typical noises of the game (mostly shouting) seemed to be closer than usual. I looked up just in time to reflex-catch the ball as it flew towards my face. There was a moment's hesitation followed by some supportive encouragement and instruction from the coach: "Run with it you little idiot!" As the very real prospect of an imminent mangling fizzled into my awareness, I did just that; sprinting as fast as my little legs could carry me while wearing ankle-high rugby boots, spurred on by the terror of having the much larger boys (that would be all of them, then) catch me, throw me to the muddy ground and trample me therein. Initially I was directionless; all I wanted to do was head towards 'away' and I half expected to be crushed at any second. To my surprise, however, after running the wrong way for several seconds, I found myself running towards the opposition's goal posts through a slow-motion world; giant filth-covered galloots swung and missed, grasping hands reached out just too late to grab the fluttering hand-me-down jersey which hung down below my shorts, and cursing centres jinked the wrong way in response to my own instinctive side step. I had no idea what I was doing, but it worked! Soon, only the full back stood forlornly between me and unexpected glory. His name was Simon Bumfort. With a name like that he was just asking for trouble.

Luck was on my side: he was just about the only boy on the pitch smaller than me, and I knew that I had a slim chance of victory. As I advanced, he danced about nervously, unsure of what to do (which made two of us). I jinked; he jinked. I jinked the other way; he followed my move once more. I could hear nothing - the roar of the wind in my ears totally obscuring the high-pitched, screamed (eleven year old boys sound every bit like eleven year old girls) encouragement of my team mates and the instructions of the coach. So far, the only tries scored in our instructional games had been when one pack or the other more or less accidentally fell over the try line with somebody underneath the pile still miraculously clutching - or more likely, lying upon - the ball. This, then, was an opportunity to make a name for myself. Simon jumped about opposite me until the amount of grass between us had almost totally disappeared and then, having run out of jinking ideas and in a state of mild panic, I ran - much to my own surprise - straight through and over him. He squealed feebly (rather like a dog's squeaky toy) as I did so, which served only to awaken my latent blood lust, and laughing manically like a miniature Christopher Walken, I triumphantly crossed the try line, leaped theatrically into the air (as I had seen players do on TV) and flopped to the ground in the corner, about as far from the posts as it was possible to get. I landed on the ball and kncoked all the air out of my lungs, but it didn't matter - I'd scored! Unbelievably, I had really scored a try. Rugby was, suddenly, actually extremely cool!

From that moment on, I looked forward to every games session - two hours of rugby each week during which I entertained the dream of recreating my glory with another scintillating run. I ached to get the ball in my hands once again. My excitement was partly due to the fact that I had unexpectedly discovered a sport which suited my fleetness of foot as well as my agility...just as long as I didn't have to tackle anyone. I tried not to think about that too much. The state of the schoolboy game in the 1970s was such that we were all very much beginners; mini-rugby did not exist and eleven was the entry age for young players. As a result, most games - training or otherwise - consisted largely of two packs of chubby and lanky kids huddled over the ball, engaged in an endless wrestling match in the muddiest part of the pitch, with an occasional decisive breakaway. While extending the boring element of being on the wing, it also meant that I could deliberately spend some time looking enthusiastic about tackling someone without much danger of ever having to actually do so. I could survive by bluff...or so I thought.

The first time it actually happened, I rather stupidly tried to tackle the largest, ugliest and nastiest kid on the pitch - Martin 'Bones' Powell - and for my feeble efforts found myself lying on my back with a boot print on my chest, quite unable to breathe for a while, as the game continued around me. The second time, despite having taken an oath to never try anything so stupid in the future, it was, remarkably, Martin who again faced my terrifying wrath (although he may understandably have mistaken my wrath for trembling knees, a whimpering sound and quivering lips). I could see him grinning as, having broken free from the pack with a mighty roar and with flames (well, almost) snorting from his nostrils, he bore down upon me, knees pumping like enormous, mud-caked pink pistons and eyes glowing with hatred. Clearly, he anticipated another trampling. 'Oh crap." I thought, somewhat less than fearlessly. Driven more by the embarrassment of the previous week's effort (I told you we didn't get to make many tackles) than anything else, I forced myself to try again. This time I cunningly avoided the head-on foolishness of my first attempt and allowed him to almost pass me before leaping on him, not unlike Gollum onto a fat Hobbit. Since biting and clubbing were frowned upon even in those days, I hung on to him like a frightened Octopus, and tried my best to bring his relatively gargantuan mass down.It immediately became clear - as we proceeded down the pitch at undiminished speed - that he had barely noticed my lightweight presence, and I was forced to adopt a more cunning strategy, sliding down his bulk, sustaining blows from his flailing feet in the process, until my arms were around his legs. At that point, despite being shaken like a rag doll, I gripped as tight as I could, closed my eyes and dragged my legs along the ground. To my astonishment, with a howl of outrage and dismay, he suddenly toppled forwards on top of the ball. Within a second the chasing pack were on us, carefully and enthusiastically trampling on Martin and - thank you, sweet Jesus - avoiding my own delicate limbs. Martin - not a very popular kid - howled and yelled and then cried like a baby as scores of boots rained down their revenge upon his bullying bulk, while I, curling into a foetal position, escaped with nary a mark from an accidental kick here and there. Lying there under the pile of bodies and with mud in my nostrils, I grinned to myself. Rugby was genuinely cool, even when it hurt a bit.

What was it then, that appealed to a small boy who until then had only played soccer, both for fun at home and for his junior (elementary) school team? Well...to be blunt: nothing at all, really. At the outset, I was certainly scared of getting hurt - and getting hurt badly. As a small kid I survived on my wits, making my friends laugh and avoiding fights, but rugby seemed to require the exact opposite of me. On the face of it, rugby was an intimidating, gladiatorial and downright frightening sport that until then I had only watched with horrified fascination on TV. Being almost literally thrown into it at school with no choice in the matter was the only way I was ever likely to encounter it as a playing experience. My very earliest experiences were all negative (thankfully not overly painful or terrifying), but once I had experienced the thrill of scoring a try with almost my first touch of the ball (it was a good thing I hadn't needed to try to pass the darned thing), and then faced my worst fears and successfully tackled someone, everything in the garden appeared to be rosy. I had, of course, yet to experience the embarrassments of dropping the crucial catch, missing the vital tackle, kicking fresh air where a moment before there had definitely been a ball, and of course the indescribable and unforgettable delights of being on the receiving end of a perfectly timed hand-off to the face.

These fleeting disasters were all unimagined moments as, with a shaft of heavenly sunlight falling upon me and an orchestra playing a crescendo of inspirational music in the background, I lay in a pile of mud and quietly fell deeply and irrevocably in love with the game...

I'll try to be brief because this subject, almost more than any other, is one which I could ramble on about until the hind legs of donkeys everywhere have parted company with the rest of said beasts, until all the dairy herd have returned to the farm from a week-long amble through the countryside, and until my face has turned the colour of a cloudless sky.

I met my gorgeous wife - a woman who is simply without compare (and yet who has a very strange idea about what makes the ideal husband) - more than thirty two years ago. We very quickly fell in love and were partners for almost three years before we went our separate ways for reasons which would lead me to utterly shatter my promise to be brief. What matters is that we split up and basically - after seeing one another approximately ten months afterwards - completely lost touch for the next twenty two years.

In the intervening years we both led eventful lives. We both married and had kids (I didn't actually gestate the babies like she did, but you get the picture), we both had rewarding professional careers, and we both made courageous and life-changing decisions of one sort or another. By the time we re-discovered one another's existence (via the wonder of the internetwebthing), we had both had unsuccessful conclusions to our respective marriages - she was already a divorcee, I someone just arrived at the end of my own marriage.

Cutting short a long, syrupy and gushy story (with lots of soft-focus pictures, flowers and romantic music), our love burst into our lives in a way that had no script, no precedents and no rules to guide it. We simply charged, headlong and recklessly, into love once again. It was - and is - right. It's something that neither of us has any control over. We love one another in a way that I have never known before.

So WHY - WHY, dammit - does an ancient, terrified and stupid program suddenly fire up twenty minutes ago when I see an old photo - one that I've seen many times before - of my gorgeous lover with a previous partner of hers? It makes me so fucking mad that this little spiky part of me raises its head above the parapet, jabs me in the ribs for maybe two seconds and then disappears again, leaving the echo of a pain that is thirty years old, and which has no place in my life now... What positive purpose does it serve? I wonder...

I have to admit that it reminds me of how much I love her. It reminds me of how much of a hole in my life I had without her, despite the people I loved who surrounded me and made me happy just by being there, and it reminds me of how much - at a fundamental level, I need her in my life for the rest of my life. Finally, it reminds me of the idiot I once was - and there is the root of my frustration and anger - the idiot who pushed her away in the first place; the idiot so scared that I held on too tight to her for fear of being left alone.

That idiotic part is tiny, shrivelled and almost gone now. I thought it had vanished completely, but apparently there is still a withered relic lying deep within my memory. We've been back together for seven years, and our love is unbreakable, so this extremely annoying intrusion from my past into the present is not only annoying, it's utterly ridiculous. Now I'm angry with myself, but perhaps it's time to leave that kind of feeling behind with all the other old, irrelevant nonsense. This moment, after all, lasted two seconds, no more than that - and I've been fulminating over it for so much longer than it deserves.

It's time instead now to focus upon the things I am reminded of; those things which are real and true. Time to leave the frightened boy behind once and for all and to live in the now, looking forward to our future.

​My father died more than four years ago. I've written elsewhere about my experience of his death and my grief and it's safe to say that I've reached a point where the tears no longer rise. I miss him, of course - I wish that he was still around, but I've come to terms with the fact that he's gone for ever. These days I think about that less and less as time progresses, but as most people will agree, it's not possible to forget. Occasionally, I'm reminded of something about him, of him or connected to him. Today, it was a TV food program of all things.

​Sri Lanka is a place that, I think, was forever a part of my dad. He served there in the Royal Navy in the 1950s and often mentioned it in later life. He never, oddly enough, mentioned that he was shipped home from that exotic location under intriguing circumstances (the only RN rating on a troop ship full of army personnel), but that only deepens the untold story of his life on that island. Despite his references to the time he spent there, I know precious little about the details - he so rarely told any stories (which I hope meant that they weren't considered fit for our consumption), but I do know that he always wished to return to a place where he made some close friends.

​Indeed, one of the defining stories about my dad is the one I managed to drag out of him in which he helped support the family of a local alongside whom he found himself working each day. When he discovered that the man was doing the same work for a tiny fraction of the money that he was being paid, he began putting his hand in his own pocket in order to supplement this man's family income. This, despite the fact that his own wages were supporting a wife and child back in the UK, too. That gentle, unthinking generosity was at the heart of the man that I knew.

​He loved Sri Lanka ('Ceylon' as he always preferred). I often wondered if something happened there which shaped him in ways which I have never understood. He often spoke of going back - and a TV program has reminded me of this today - but he never managed to fulfill that dream. I find it sad that he missed out on that adventure and whatever he felt - or perhaps knew - awaited him there. I suspect that he had secrets there, and I wish I knew what they were - in fact I'd settle for just knowing that he had such secrets, without knowing about them.

His unfulfilled wish makes me a little sad on his behalf - the thought that he longed to return and never could is a melancholy one. There's more to it than that, of course. It's a reminder to me that my dreams are for chasing, and that our time on this sweet earth is all too brief....maybe I need to visit 'Ceylon'....

Last week I had a 'telephone consultation' with a doctor five thousand miles away. As a direct result of that conversation (with quite possibly the most nervous person that I have ever spoken to in such a context), this week I received some news which in financial terms, was crushing. It means that what had been the potential for one kind of lifestyle is now just a pipe dream. We haven't lost any money that we already have (or will have), but the prospect of things being much, much easier has been dangled before us, and now whipped away again. The chances of successfully appealing the matter are slim.

Oh well...

Yesterday I went to see my own doctor to get some advice on the matter. Deploying my English stiff upper lip, I declined to burst into tears or sit on his lap, sobbing. Instead I maintained what I hoped was a dignified air of disappointed truculence, garnished with a soupcon of 'Life goes on.' The result was a useful chat about the situation (which I shall bore you with no longer, dear reader) but which also touched upon something which has been bothering me for at least eighteen months.

A little while ago (you may surmise that it was around eighteen months or so, you cunning swine, you), I began to experience strange heart beats - a feeling that my heart was skipping one or more beats at regular intervals. While new and strange, it was also bloody frightening. Since having it checked out, one old (and thankfully, now retired) GP managed to instil something approaching panic in me about the situation, and my much younger, intensely competent personal GP has sought to reassure me that I am NOT about to drop down dead.

Because of my diabetes, I see my doctor at least every three months, when he tells me how old and fat I have become since he last saw me. Actually, that's not quite true - when earlier this year I was subjected to a 'medical' by him, he described me as a 'strapping' individual. While ever so slightly disquieted by the possibility of this being a coded reference to some extreme sexual play, I laughed it off before kicking the chair over and running for my life. The point is that I see the good doctor more regularly than most people visit their own GP. I have my blood tested every three months and we discuss general health matters and good practice - all of which I earnestly agree with and then almost immediately earnestly forget when I get home (excuse me while I pause to dip my chocolate bar in some melted lard...).

For the last twelve months, I have cunningly managed to insert this heart beat thing into the conversation at every opportunity (and if there wasn't an opportunity, I'd create one). Doctor Dennis (not his real name) has patiently advised me that this condition is not dangerous, that it's a nuisance, an inconvenience and a discomfort but nothing more. he's done this a number of times. I always believe him - right up until the next ectopic heartbeat, at which point I become immediately convinced that I should be carrying ID and a copy of my will with me at all times. The old ticker, after all, is about as fundamental an organ as it's possible to have (some might put the brain first, but I've been functioning without one of those for fifty one years), and anything strange going on in there is a little disturbing, to put it mildly.

Yesterday, the doctor hit upon a selection of words (cunningly strung together in the correct order which effectively calmed my fears. FINALLY, he told me that it's not going to cause a cardiac arrest and neither is it going to cause a heart attack. Well, as you can imagine, I was filled with relief. Warmly, I shook him by the throat and muttered something like "Eighteen fucking months I've been waiting to hear you say that...eighteen months!" As he straightened his collar, he pointed out that my voice had drifted into italics on a couple of words, which earned him a swift uppercut and kick to the undercarriage, but so deep is our rapport, we parted as friends (in a doctor/patient kind of way).

I felt much better as I left the building, but I'm not sure about him...

On Saturday I had the privilege of being alongside a beautiful young woman at a significant and well-attended event not very far from my home. Even more edifying was the fact that she seemed to be quite happy to be seen with me - and even to talk to me - despite the obvious difference in our ages.

She looked quite stunning in an elegant, classy dress which I had not seen her wear before - in fact I had never seen her in such a thing. She had been taking advantage of our recent local weather and was sporting a moderate tan, in contrast to other attendees at the public event, who were obviously lathered with false skin colour. She was, quite simply, beautiful - and in a classy, serene way.

It's been a very long time since I have been accompanied by a beautiful young woman (although I am on a daily basis to be seen alongside a beautiful mature woman who has been generous enough to allow me to share my life with her). On Saturday, for much of the time I wore a silly, even goofy smile and tried to not say too much in case I embarrassed my young lady. I'm very skilled at embarrassing her; if you hadn't already guessed, she is my daughter.

On Saturday I accompanied her to the beginning of her 'prom' afternoon and evening. To do so gave me much joy and intense pride. Her obvious beauty, you see, is more than skin deep - and I am proud to be her father for many more reasons than one.

She is my youngest child, and her schooling is coming to an end - in more ways than one. Just as the high school finishes the job it was tasked to do, so I am gently allowing the reins of parenthood to loosen, and the informal instruction and moments of unsolicited advice to lessen (but not cease altogether, as my experience with her older sibling has taught me). Saturday marked a milestone - soon to be followed by an official graduation ceremony - not just for her but also for me, the man who - throwing all common sense aside - would prefer to protect her (and her brother) from every sling and arrow that the world has to hurl.

Of course I know that I cannot - must not, do that. I know that the young folk must be free, that they must make mistakes on their own terms, and discover all the lessons of their lives without being shielded from them. My daughter is the last child to reach this point, and I'm suddenly forced to reflect upon that fact; I must accept that a phase of my own life is drifting towards a different one.

There is sadness, of course, in acknowledging that my children no longer have the same need or desire to hear my advice or my perspective on the world - but I remember being much the same at their ages. I was too busy to listen to the relatively sparse snippets of advice from my own parents. I was impatient to get out into the world and explore life and what it had to offer - and so, I find, are my children (despite the small difference in ages, they seem to be somewhat synchronized at last). That realization excites me - their enthusiasm for doing their own thing is slightly alarming (I suspect because it's so different from how it has always been) but deeply gratifying - after all, what other target can a parent have for their healthy child?

From the moment they were born, I have known that these moments would arrive. I have always known that I would one day have to acknowledge their independence, that I would have to take a deep breath and wish them bon voyage. Well, over the next year or so, the times will indeed be a-changin', although I am committed to being/providing a safety net - something that I never experienced as a young adult.

This weekend marks the beginning of a new phase of all our lives, and I've always found change to be positive, even if the first steps upon a new road can be challenging. The next phase should be fun.

On Saturday I allowed myself to notice and experience the instinctive joy of watching my daughter show the world that she is now a young woman. I allowed myself the simple joy of watching her feel good about herself, watching how the compliments from other people lifted her out of nervousness, and brought out her stunning smile. I became that dad: the one who wants to nudge passers-by and say "That's my daughter!", whether they want to know or not. Fortunately, I held myself in check and controlled such silly urges.

Having been as involved and engaged a father as I could possibly be, I have helped make wonderful, loving, kind young people. That is a fact, and it probably constitutes my greatest achievement. It feels good; it's life-affirming.

While I look on at my kids with a joy formed of the unconditional love that I hold for them, I think I might allow myself another luxury - that of some pride in a job done as well as I could/can do it. As the wheel keeps turning, I very much hope that I can, one day, be the kind of grandfather that I used to wish for when I was a child, and whom (my father) I was lucky enough to watch so obviously loving my children.

My dad was always a staunch Conservative (both upper and lower case 'c'), and was never shy about saying so. As a result, from an early age I was gently steeped (yes, gently: politics was thankfully never a particularly popular subject for familial conversation) in his view of the world. My mum always seemed to agree in principle, but tended to not respond with any depth, and to the best of my recollection, never actually declared which party she voted for on polling days. I'm not even sure that she ever actually voted - something which would have had my dad compressing his lips into a thin line while reluctantly tolerating her approach.

Dad worked in the police force when I was born, and continued to do so for the following twenty years. In the 60s, 70s and 80s in particular, the police service in the UK was not remarkable for its liberal ideology. 'Lefties' needed not apply - and so, I suspect, it remains to this day. Dad fitted in very well. Generally speaking, if you were a male police officer, you voted Conservative and conservatively. This was odd, because an underlying distrust of the political class as a whole was all-pervasive among the service, even when I too became a human part of that machine. The people who pulled the strings were generally regarded as useless tossers who wouldn't know one end of a Greenpeace protester from the other end of a half-naked horse molester (oh yes: they were out there) - yet still, almost to a man, we voted for them time after time. We sewed the whirlwind.

In the years since I began to finally think my own thoughts rather than regurgitating those of other people, I have often pondered why I was picked up and carried along by a far more right-wing ideology than I can comfortably entertain today. Apart from the obvious reason (that being stupidity), I have tried to examine the line of thinking that led me to accept and heartily agree with my dear old dad's perspective - especially since at least one of my siblings did not concur. I have little excuse - it's not as if access to other viewpoints was restricted; the television was hardly ever turned off in our home, and opposing views from left-wing or centrist politicians frequently blurted out of that little speaker and into our living room, much to my father's disgust. I shared his contempt as soon as I was able to do so. My reward was to not be glared at (unlike my brother) with an expression of shock mixed with outrage which spoke of (as it turned out: prophetically) being written out of the will.

I've always nurtured a delusion that I am 'different' in a way that is positive. Deep down, I know that it's bollocks and that I'm about as ordinary a man as it's possible to be, but I retain a tiny, child-like hope that I am special or at the very least, untypical. It's a little disappointing therefore, to realize that at least part of the reason that I held the political views that I did was from a desire to fit in and be part of a group. Whether it was a group of two or three in my own house (and siding with the group leader is always a good strategy for a small ape) or a much larger group in the industry within which I worked, fitting in with political views gave me a feeling of security, safety and some degree of confidence that I was right. How sad.

Breaking out of that kind of thinking has been a wonderful by-product of my decision to leave the police force and to leave the country of my birth and upbringing. Fourteen years ago yesterday, I left that part of my life behind in England and came with my then wife and our two small kids to British Columbia. Five thousand-and-some miles seemed like a long way to travel, but the distance between the man I was and the man I have become is much, much greater. Sometimes I forget about it, but it does me good to remember that in 2002 I was a very different person to the (admittedly ragged, worn, pot-bellied and balding) fellow you perceive dropping words haphazardly onto these pages. It does me good because I had a secret hope back then. I hoped to change - a quiet, suppressed part of the person inside wanted to be someone a little unlike whom I had become by the age of 37. Having very recently celebrated my 51st birthday (by the way, I hope you notice when the numbers change on the title photo?), I said - as I often do - to somebody that I still feel as if I'm thirty. Only some of that is true.

Mentally, I have (I think/hope) the same energy as I always had. I think I'm as sharp as I ever was (picture the blunt end of a blunt thing), even though the body is showing signs of wear and tear and is seemingly getting its revenge for the things that I have put it through from time to time. But I'm not the man I was - and that's a good thing. As I have mentioned before, I have lost much of the bigotry that used to infest my thoughts (I have no doubt that I'm not completely cleansed of all of them - but if I were, you might well find me with flowers tied to my few remaining hairs, strumming a lute, singing 'hey nonny-nonny', and surrounded by otters and swans - what a terrifying picture!), and despite my frequent outbursts of frustration with anyone who is not me, I am a much happier person than I ever used to be. I have the room and the time in my life to more completely enjoy the love of others, and to express more fully my love for those closest to me. At times, I'm almost nice...

The most strident evidence of the difference in my thinking and my perspective on life has been the paradigm shift in my politics. These days (as you may have noticed once or twice on these very pages) I am incredulous that so many people hold such right wing views. Having been there, having lived outside of that bubble without the safety net and now having run around the circle and settled at a spot pretty much opposite that which I used to occupy, I can hardly believe what I used to believe (if you get my meaning). In order to feel safe, I had joined the gang of the frightened people. In order to 'belong', I'd become one of so many who fear difference of almost every kind, and who despise those who are unlike 'us'. I'd accepted the unspoken mantra of 'Be like us or fuck off!'

More than that: I had lived it. I needed to leave that behind, and through making the biggest change in my life that I felt was possible, I believe I've managed it.

How very stupid I had been. It's a good job that there is life after being stupid...

My advice is that if you find yourself in the brink of making a major change, watch that first step off the diving board: it's a doozie alright, but the water can be so very refreshing.

The ongoing farce in the country just a few miles to the south of where I sit (if you're wondering: the USA) is hard to ignore. I would dearly love to ignore it, because the idea of an egotistical mental lightweight (riding upon a carnival platform of stupidity, bigotry and vague promises to be the best at everything, ever) even being allowed to represent a political party as a nominee is more than an embarrassment. It's disgusting that a man such as this has become a person with a following - but there's a big hitch. The hitch is that he has arrived at this point legitimately, and even despite the efforts of the party grandees who created the climate for such a mess to be probable. The Republican Party - and the American people - have themselves to blame for a situation which shames their nation.

What we face now is a summer of open confrontation. It may be interesting, but although I expect a few moments of unintentional hilarity, I suspect that much of the discourse will simply highlight the fact that you can't argue with stupidity. If the other person/group/political party is incapable of understanding the opposing argument, the dialogue is largely pointless - unless, of course, the dialogue is merely an opportunity to voice opposing opinions, and not to actually debate anything in any kind of a meaningful way. That would never happen in a political 'debate', would it? Surely not - but let's push the politicians aside to where they belong (the silly, dishonest boys and girls room).

While I wipe myself down to remove the cynicism and sarcasm oozing from every pore (sorry about that image - may I suggest that you go and briefly look at a photo of someone beautiful to make yourself feel better?), I should point out that the problem with arguing with stupidity regularly presents itself to me in daily life. And it's a pain in the butt-ox.

It's not that I consider myself intelligent - I've seen evidence of the fact that many people are brighter sparks than I (and might I add that accepting this fact has brought me a measure of peace) - but I do seem to come up against a great many people with extreme views of the world - whether it be the happy-clappy, all-the-world's-a-rainbow-made-of-candy-cane-unicorns type of Deepak Chopra follower, or at the other end of the scale, the dyed-in-the-wool right winger with capitalism and making money at the heart of their ethical belief system (although Christianity also seems to be wedged in there somewhere, into a space better shaped for dollar bills). It's not the people that are stupid (usually) - but the ideas. There is, after all, a difference between BEING stupid and doing something that is stupid.

I'd wager a few groats that all of us - even the more intelligent ones - have done a few stupid things in life. I, for example, should never have got into that field filled with inquisitive cows...

Arguing with someone who holds an extreme (spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D) view of the world rapidly becomes a futile effort, and not much later than that, transforms into an act of stupidity itself. Having had a number of stupid preconceptions pointed out to me over the years (I'm a reformed homophobe and xenophobe) and having changed my position on any number of important issues, I do tend to forget that for many people, their views are part of their identity. Confronting world views is to confront who a person really is, and that's a mightily immovable lump to end up butting your head against, even if it's soft and squidgy (the lump, that is; not your head). My experience has been that people with extreme views refuse even to listen to another perspective, and frequently revert to talking more loudly or simply more than the other person, in order to drown out the dissent. When this happens, it's time to leave them with their delusion.

It only takes one extremist to cause division; these days, as a former hard core conservative I consider myself to be a moderate in most things (except of course, forays into fields filled with cows), and while I would love for people to lighten up from either end of the spectrum, life is too short to spend time having futile, one-sided shouting matches with otherwise intelligent people behaving moronically. So, I withdraw in the vast majority of cases, although I will from time to time send a heat-seeking ground-to-ground missile zinging along at knee height when my own values are sufficiently outraged by Tweedle Dee or Dum(b). Much like becoming overly frustrated with other drivers, doing anything more takes up a disproportionate amount of my emotional energy, and is a waste of moments which I could be enjoying instead. Therefore, when I return to work in two days, I shall avoid telling the fellow who works in the same building that all the world's problems are not caused solely by left-wingers who have ruined everything by allowing difference and change to occur.

I'll just wonder quietly if he will realize before he grows too old, what a complete prick he makes himself seem.